


Warrant

by darkwood



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 21:26:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkwood/pseuds/darkwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/197586">dev_chieftan's "Trust In Me"</a>. Many, many props to the original author. I can't wait to see more of that wok.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warrant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sciencemyfiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencemyfiction/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Trust in Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/197586) by [sciencemyfiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencemyfiction/pseuds/sciencemyfiction). 



> dev_chieftan was gracious enough to allow me the go-ahead on posting this. I absolutely fell in love with the way Fenris was portrayed in the first part of “Trust in Me”, and as I came late to the fan party of DA, I wanted more.
> 
> Let’s hope I manage to do this some justice.
> 
> Please read the original. It’s smattered all across this summary and chapter top.

         It was evening when Hawke’s eyes opened again, and the room was too bright for sleep-darkened irises. He closed them quickly, turning his face away from the fire. Somehow, despite the fire, and the weight of the blankets he could feel – they felt as heavy as an avalanche – he was still cold. But he was awake, and Hawke had never been one to languish in bed once he was up. Groaning, Hawke started to sit up.

         “I do not advise it,” a deep voice said.

         A deep, familiar voice.

         Of all the things he expected after the duel – death being the most readily anticipated of them – Fenris sitting in his sick room made neither the short nor the long list.

         The surprise of it had Hawke’s eyes snapping open as he shot upright.

         “Do _not_ ,” a stern voice said.

         As though the command were spoken to his body and not to him, a rush of pain swept through Hawke. He did not make it upright. Each place he had been wounded grew lit on fire with pain, and it felt like his skin had been sundered anew. His shoulder was bad, his gut was worse, and all the pieces in-between that were required to move his torso had some vicious complaint at the action. Hawke was powerless against the sensation of it all. He barely lifted himself an inch before he slumped back into his bed and closed his eyes.

         With his eyes closed, Hawke could not see Fenris, but he could _feel_ the lyrium-branded elf near him. He could always sense Fenris, and though he had at one time enjoyed the romantic sensation that his heart was attuned with the man he loved, the cold reality of being abandoned had made him honest. He could sense Fenris as he could sense any large enough or potent enough collection of lyrium. Fenris was the strongest lyrium he had ever encountered – he had a pulse and a mood – and so it was only natural that Hawke be able to feel him. The pain had put Hawke’s were just out of tune enough that he could not tell how close or far Fenris was.

         Careful of his abused muscles, Hawke inched his elbows closer to his sides in a new attempt to get himself upright. “I really don’t see where you-”

         A firm hand smacked into his bare chest, and the meager strength of Hawke’s arms gave out under the force of it. He knew _exactly_ where Fenris was the second the strong palm touched him. Even closed eyes could sense the lyrium. In the darkness behind his lids, Hawke could see the pattern extending from Fenris’ palm up his arm and coursing along every other curled inch that had been branded into the elf’s skin. More than that, Hawke could _hear_ it. Once Anders had muttered something about the lyrium singing to Justice when they were both separate Wardens. Fenris’ lyrium cursed at him through that touch – angry and foreign and powerful – in a way that Hawke could feel in his magic.

         For a moment Hawke lay there, sucking in a breath, overwhelmed by it. His abused body was still the house of his magic, and as his magic stirred all the injured parts of him began to tingle. The tingle was not pleasant as it usually was, now it stung. With his eyes closed there was nothing other than angry power pulsing at him, so Hawke peeled his eyes open. He had to blink rapidly against the combined brightness of the fire and Fenris’ lyrium light.

         “You seem to have elected me your executioner,” Fenris said in a neutral voice.

         The tone was so casual that it set Hawke’s teeth on edge. He knew Fenris’ various tones from the months of sickness he’d suffered through. It was sickness born by so much – longing for his mother, for Carver, for Bethany, for father, not the least longing for Fenris – that he often could not even stand the man he desired most. Fenris would not have him, but he had not left entirely either. So Hawke had kept him as close as he could, and that had meant learning more about the elf that had crawled into his heart and taken up angry residence. He knew what Fenris sounded like angry, amused, tired, guilty… Oh the guilty tone was the best, Hawke always thought. The guilty tone gave him some twisted hope that maybe on the other side of all this darkness there was something to be had… but it never was more than a glimmer of hope.

         The tone of Fenris’ voice now was dangerous in its unfamiliarity.

         “ _Perish the thought_ ,” Hawke said, squinting his eyes as they adjusted to the light.

         Fenris’ green eyes were glaring and his upper lip was starting to curl in a silent snarl, belying the neutral tone he kept as he said, “You will cease your inane humor. There is no place for it here.”

         “This is _my home_ , Fenris,” Hawke said, frowning. The hand on his chest seemed rooted there, and the longer it held the less comfortable he felt. The sensation in him began to burn like the bite from a vicious insect or the cut from a poisoned blade. “How can there be no place for humor in it? Last I checked, this was also my chamber. Or had you missed that?”

         The hand on Hawke’s chest pressed him to the bed more firmly. Hawke thought he must be half-dead, if he’d managed to forget that Fenris had a hand on him. The motion loosed another angry shriek of the lyrium that settled into all the raw feeling places in him where his magic was excited.  He looked down at it, and then back up at the face he’d spent so much time dreaming about.

         “I have missed nothing,” Fenris said, “though I was fool enough not to see what was there.

         “You are no fool, Fenris,” Hawke sighed, trying to twist away from the hand on his chest to find some relief. “I don’t even-”

         All at once the hand on his chest was gone, taking the waves of angry power with it. Just as abruptly the blanket covering him was whipped off, and Hawke gasped at the rush of cold air against his skin. Bare to the ankles but for the dressing gown he’d been draped in, Hawke started to make another joke when Fenris snatched the last fabric from between them, pulling it up around his waist.

         Released, Hawke managed to shuffle back against his pillows into some half-upright posture, but it was mostly the strength of the pillows that held him.

         Fenris fisted the fabric, holding it high at Hawke’s hip. He didn’t stare at his legs, he looked Hawke straight in the eyes, as though daring Hawke to find some joke in this. Fenris didn’t even offer any words.

         He didn’t need to. Even without words, it was obvious what Fenris was referring to. Turning to look at the fire, Hawke welcomed the too-bright light, glad to be able to blame the wetness that threatened in his eyes on something other than the shame he felt at being discovered.

         A gentle hand touched one of the angry looking marks on his thigh, and Hawke gasped at the warmth of Fenris’ touch. It felt strange for many reasons. Unlike the slap to his chest, now Fenris’ fingers were gentle, and though he could still sense the angry power brewing in the lyrium, there was no screech of it attacking him. Even more than the change in Fenris’ touch, Hawke’s skin felt foreign. Hawke had made those marks, and avoided healing them on purpose. He knew the texture of his wounded skin, he knew the sting of pressing his fingers into them. It was muted now. The healing he’d received after the duel – he was certain it was Anders who had healed him, though he could taste the bitter aftertaste of the potions he’d no doubt been forced to drink – had done something to ease the pain of the marks he’d made, but they were still tender.

         Fenris gripped his chin, then, forcing his head to turn so he had to look into the elf’s face. The rush of lyrium was strong, but the tone of it was different, almost sad. Rather than meet what Hawke was certain was a disappointed gaze, he kept his eyes low, tracing them across Fenris’ lips.

         A frown finally curved them.

         “I would know what sense you see in this.”

         Hawke closed his eyes. Wasn’t this just lovely, then? Fenris asking for _sense_ after all that had happened. He laughed at it, shaking his head. Maker, he was so _tired_.

         The hand on his jaw tightened enough that it hurt a little. Hawke’s eyes snapped back open.

         “You will speak,” Fenris said.

         “What do you want me to say?” Hawke demanded. “There isn’t anything _to say_. My whole family is dead, Fenris. I am _alone_. I am not allowed to joke, I am apparently not allowed to take care of myself, and I am equally not allowed to die. What use is there in talking when _it serves no purpose_?” By the end of his tirade, Hawke was breathing heavily. He stared at the foot of his bed. His stomach ached, his shoulder throbbed, his palms itched and his whole body burned with the magic he could feel crawling under his skin as it reacted to the lyrium in Fenris.

         There was silence between the two of them for a long moment, and when Fenris said nothing, Hawke moved to snatch at the hem of his dressing gown. It was a futile effort. Fenris was stronger than Hawke when he was healthy, now it was like comparing an ogre and a kitten. A caramel colored hand planted itself in the bunched pillows beside his head, and Hawke looked up in time to find Fenris leaning in, an arm wrapping carefully around his waist and drawing Hawke’s weak body up against Fenris’.

         Closer than he’d been to Fenris in – how many years was it now? Hawke felt his breath catch in his throat. Oh, but he needed that breath. He had to take a deep breath and smell all the things about Fenris that he never got close enough to smell anymore. He had to take this in before it was over and he was denied the warmth of this touch again. He had to-

         “You will not leave in such a manner,” Fenris said in the same no-nonsense tone as earlier. It was darker, now, though, as though the words meant something.

         “Wh-”

         “Silence,” he commanded. Fenris lowered his head to Hawke’s neck and inhaled deeply.

         There was the warmth of a fire, and the warmth of his mabari, and then there was this. Fenris was slender and all muscle, but this close he was perfect. He was warm and they fit together just right. Hawke closed his eyes and tipped his head back just a little, like a cat basking in the sunlight. Savor it, he told himself, hold on to this moment.

         Fenris was silent a few moments, just breathing and holding him, and Hawke wondered if Fenris was relishing this embrace as much as he was. “You will not leave _me_ in such a manner.”

         This must be a dream, then. He must be in the Fade, and his mind had conjured all this up.

         Strong arms loosened, and Hawke was lowered gently to the bed. He sighed in disappointment, only to be interrupted by a pair of firm lips pressing him down. A warm tongue slid into his mouth, and Hawke didn’t care if it was a dream or not, so long as Fenris never stopped kissing him.

         Breathing requirements meant that Fenris did.

         It felt just as cold and bitter as the morning he’d walked out.

         “Do you hear me, Hawke?” Fenris asked, pressing their foreheads together.

         “But you left me.” The words were out of Hawke’s mouth before he realized he had said anything, and he instantly regretted them. They had never broached this before. Neither of them spoke a word about it, and carried on as though nothing had happened.

         “A mistake I will not repeat,” Fenris said. His expression hardened, and his eyes closed a moment. “I thought it better if you were free.”

         Hawke grunted, wishing he was not so sore and could turn away from this conversation physically. He did not know how to answer Fenris anymore than he believed what the elf had said to him.

         Fenris offered no more words. He lowered his hands, smoothing the dressing gown back down Hawke’s legs. Green eyes searched Hawke’s body for a moment, and then Fenris leaned back to pull the blankets back up him, tucking them around Hawke’s chest carefully.

         “Fenris,” Hawke said, frowning at the careful treatment. All he could conclude was a repeat of what had happened **that night** , and Hawke was suddenly, desperately afraid of being alone again. “Please, don’t… if you don’t want… you don’t have to…”

         “I want nothing more than you,” Fenris said, hands lingering on the blanket, smoothing imagined wrinkles from it. “And I was coward enough to let fear of that drive me from you.”

         It was too much, too soon. Hawke could barely comprehend the words he had been given. Hawke’s heart pounded wildly in his chest. Fenris wanted him. _Fenris_ wanted _him_.

         “Say I am not too late,” Fenris said.

         Hawke did not trust his voice to answer in any way intelligent. He struggled his arms out from under the blankets and lifted them. Fenris sighed softly and leaned down against him again, cheek pressing against his.

         It was good, so good it must be a dream, mustn’t it? He was giving in to some Fade demon, and he’d wake up with some new appendages and a serious thirst for human blood or something.

         “You must rest, Hawke,” Fenris said in a low voice. “Be at peace, I will be here when you awaken.”


End file.
